Marc Jacobs has to decided to become the new face of Marc Jacobs. He explained the genesis of the ad for his new men's fragrance to WWD:

"Robert and I work closely with Coty on these projects, and he said, ‘Marc, you look so great now — you should be the model for men’s fragrance.’ My immediate reaction was, I don’t know. But then I came to see that it made sense. Men’s fragrance, unlike women’s in a certain way, is very personal. It’s a layer on top of skin — for women, it can be like changing a makeup color, but not for men."

"Once I agreed to be the model, I couldn’t see what I would wear to express this. We tried it with clothes, but it didn’t work. Then Juergen had the idea for the silver Mylar, and it all came together. The silver Mylar also gives it that flash, that bang."

Look, we think Marc Jacobs is one of the most talented designers of his generation, by far. We also think it's perfectly fine to remold yourself physically and want to indulge in a little showing off. It's something quite a few gay men go through at some point in their lives. We did. And believe us, we look back at some of our getups and pictures from that period in our lives where we had the abs and the muscles and the silly little outfits designed to show them off with a combination of "Damn, we looked good/Jesus, we looked silly" so we say this as a couple of gays who have been there and done that.

We think this ad is utterly cringe-worthy. Like we said, there's nothing wrong with remaking yourself so that you're more to your liking (although let's face it, like so many gay men, he remade himself more to the liking of the kind of men he wanted to sleep with), but this need he has to flaunt it to the world is getting embarrassing. We're not really fragrance queens, but if we were, we can guarantee an ad like this would almost certainly turn us off. It practically screams of low self-esteem.

And if you think we're being harsh, ask yourself this: If a 47-year-old female designer launched her fragrance by posing for the ad naked and greased up with her legs spread, would you think that was something to be admired? Or would you think she was being tacky? Go ahead. Picture the above ad with Cynthia Rowley.